


White Picket Fences

by alice_pike



Category: Jurassic Park Series - Michael Crichton
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:19:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alice_pike/pseuds/alice_pike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Walking into Lex's room never fails to make Tim feel like a scared, hunted little kid again.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Picket Fences

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** for incest and physical restraints/dubcon-ish elements.
> 
> Takes place almost ten years after the island.

Walking into Lex's room never fails to make Tim feel like a scared, hunted little kid again. If you didn't know them, you'd think Lex had been the dinosaur fanatic all her life, not him. There are pictures of dinosaurs all over the walls; there are magazines and textbooks littered across her floor; there are figurines and paleontology models on her shelves.

It makes Tim's skin crawl just looking at it all. Lex, for her part, is sprawled across her bed, seemingly without a care in the world.

"You're such a freak, Lex," Tim says, his voice harsh with his own anxiety.

"Yeah?" Lex challenges him, rolling onto her stomach, on the defensive immediately. They always seem just seconds away from fights, nowadays. It's been _years_ , but Tim guesses this is the kind of thing that gets worse with time, not better. He doesn't know why. He doesn't question it.

"At least I'm trying to get over it, Tim. At least I can _think_ about it, unlike you."

Tim has to stop himself from fucking _growling_. "You're not getting over it. You can't let it go! Look at yourself, you're obsessed."

What Tim doesn't say is that he's just as obsessed as she is, even if the evidence isn't plastered across every inch of his life like it is for her. Lex knows this, anyway, and she just glares at him for a moment. 

"Go away, Tim," she orders. 

He does. He was about to practically run from the pictures on her walls, anyway.

 

It's times like these that Tim wishes Dr. Grant were back from Costa Rica. He's not sure, exactly, what Alan could do for them, but he figures having an adult around who at least _understands_ them would help in some way. Their mother is about as supportive now as their father had always been, but Tim can't really fault her for that. _"We're sorry, Mrs. Murphy, but your children were attacked by prehistoric extinct creatures and your father is dead. Have a good day!"_ Yeah, that must have been an easy phone call to get. 

God, they're all so fucked up.

Him and Lex, despite fighting tooth and nail pretty much every second they're together, have no one but each other. The demolition of Isla Nublar didn't exactly make headlines in the States, but InGen has been in financial ruin since Hammond died, and rumors of the island—and Tim and Lex's part it in—spread steadily enough to prevent them having anything close to a normal life when they were finally released by the Costa Rican government.

Tim's sort of glad for it.

He doesn't think he could stand talking to _anyone_ , or having to explain what happened. Lex...Lex _knows_ , and that's good enough. Strangely, there's something comforting about being with her, even fighting with her—he feels as normal as he ever does now, just knowing that she understands.

They're sitting on his bed (Tim wonders, sometimes, if Lex decorated her room like that just to keep Tim out of it) well on their way to getting blackout drunk. He's closer to twenty-one than she is, but they're obviously still not legal. Their mom turns a blind eye, though, out of sympathy or helplessness, Tim still isn't sure. He's too drunk right now to care.

Lex fingers the stem of the bottle thoughtfully. Tim watches her; there's something about Lex in these moments—she lets her guard down, she's _real_ about what happened like she isn't at any other time. They don't fight—not usually—when the small hours of the morning are slipping past them and their memories are dulled with liquor.

"Do you think things will change?" Lex asks him.

Tim doesn't need to ask what she means. "I don't know, Lex," he tells her honestly. "I thought maybe with time, but..." he trails off with a shrug. "Doesn't seem that way, does it?" He takes the bottle from her.

"Maybe if you tried," she retorts, but there's no real venom in it. They both know that she doesn't have a leg to stand on about this, despite appearances.

"Let's not fight, Lex, okay?" Tim asks her anyway. He doesn't have the energy for it right now.

"Whatever," she says dismissively. "At least I don't _like_ this," she adds, like it's an afterthought, but she knows Tim too well for that, and she knows that _Tim_ knows it, too.

Tim tenses immediately, every muscle in his body coiling for a fight. Lex understands him, but there's no way she could know that, no way she could even _think_ that. Sure, if it's a choice between dealing with it himself and letting anyone else in, well, that's not a choice at all. But that doesn't mean he fucking _likes_ it. Lex takes this moment to smile at him—what could be considered a normal smile by anyone else, but Tim sees the cruelty in it, the unspoken _then what are you so angry about?_

His mind goes blank, full of white noise and static like Lex's comment wiped out everything else, but his whole body is thrumming with anger. "What did you just say?" he asks her, voice low. "What the _fuck_ did you just say?" he asks again when she doesn't answer. She's just sitting there, looking at him with clear eyes as cold as his voice, and something in him snaps. 

He lunges towards Lex, his movements uncoordinated but still efficient enough to pin her. The bottle rolls off the bed and falls to the floor with a crash, but he barely hears it over the ringing in his ears. Tim digs his hips into Lex's stomach and makes to grab for her wrists, but she fights back savagely, lashing out and managing to claw her fingernails down the side of his face before he finally manages to catch them. He adjusts his body to get a better hold on her, and digs his own nails into her wrists.

They're both panting by the time he really pins her down, and she struggles futilely against him, baring her teeth at him. They don't speak, and the tension keeps spiraling. Tim stares down at her, impassive but furious, and then a moment passes and Lex relaxes under him, like she's giving into something.

It startles a reaction out of Tim. Instinctively, _stupidly_ , he lets her go, but she isn't fighting back anymore. 

"Get off me, Tim," she says, in that same calm, resigned way, and he does. Somehow, she's more commanding this way. Tim's never seen her like this, and it unsettles him. Suddenly, it's like he's dealing with a caged wild animal that might make one last bid for freedom; he doesn't know how to handle her. Her movements are graceless as she slides off his bed, stepping around the broken bottle on the floor.

She looks back at him when she gets to the doorframe, but Tim can't read the expression on her face. 

He doesn't move for a long time.


End file.
